


Mr. and Mr. Kogane-McClain / Deepest Hearts

by jamwrites



Category: Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005), Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Fluffy Ending, Gay, Gay Keith (Voltron), Gay Lance (Voltron), I actually don't know anything about guns/weapons so dont laugh at me please, I can't believe I tagged one of my fics as mr and mrs smith what is this world coming to, Keith/Lance (Voltron) Angst, M/M, Swearing, also idk about their last names, i know there are korean and cuban fandom ones but, it's just a mess in here, keith - Freeform, klance, klangst, lance - Freeform, what are they i have no idea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 12:56:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9386258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamwrites/pseuds/jamwrites
Summary: (Keith thought his life was relatively normal: he had a nice house, cool job, and great husband. So what if they were a little distant from each other? Saving the world didn't come without a price. The only problem is, there are more secrets in Keith's life than just his job. And when he's sent a mission for his first assassination in years, he finds that the op hits a little too close to home.)Keith whirled around and caught the edge of Lance’s knife on his own. For a moment they were still. Like sparring partners, staring over the metallic sheen of their blades.“How’re you holding up, darling?” Lance blinked blood out of his eyes. It was dribbling down from somewhere above his hairline, leaving a trail of crimson in its wake, leaving something of itself behind wherever it went. A large gash traveled from his forehead down to cheekbone.Their knives were trembling with force. Keith blew a strand of sweaty hair away.“I can go all morning.”Lance smirked. “Nah babe, you never could do that.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> I present to you: the obligatory spy vs. spy au that I was bound to write sooner or later. This started off as a trashy Mr. and Mrs. Smith au and...pretty much ended that way. I take no responsibility for my actions and regret nothing.

Keith’s phone went off at two thirteen am.

Not his normal phone, the one with the US Cellular data plan and “The Truth Is Out There” case. That one was sitting on the bedside table, silent and dark. Nobody who knew that phone’s number would call him in the middle of the night.

No, it was his _other_ phone going off. His work phone.

It vibrated insistently against his cheek, waking Keith up swiftly and silently. He blinked, holding still for a moment to make sure that Lance, sleeping just a foot away in their bed, was still unconscious. Satisfied, he grabbed the phone and slipped out of the blankets without difficulty. He and Lance didn’t exactly...tangle up in each other’s arms at night. Not anymore.

“Yes?” Keith didn’t bother turning on the bathroom light. Instead, he sat on the toilet with the lid down and slipped an earpiece in. He was sloughing off sleep like layers of dead skin, feeling himself grow more awake with each moment. His blood was beginning to run, his heart speeding up. A call from his work phone was never boring.

His boss’ voice rang clearly in his ear. “Agent Red? Are you alone?”

“Yes, Princess.” That was her codename, and she deserved it. Allura ran the agency like royalty; with poise, elegance, and authority. All of her agents, including Keith, trusted her with their lives. Literally. If Allura was ever captured...well, she knew everything about her agents. She was the linchpin of the agency known as ALTEA, founded by her father and passed down to her when he was killed in the field. Keith wasn’t close to many people, and he wouldn’t say he was close to Allura, exactly, but his trust in her was absolute.

“Good. We have a new objective for you.”

“Different than Operation Lion?”

“Quite. This isn’t a data retrieval op.”

He frowned. “Than what am I looking at, here?”

“A silencing.”

That gave him pause. Keith sat back on toilet, breathing in the cool night air drifting in through the open bathroom window.. A silencing...that was what ALTEA called assassination ops. The name was supposed to make it sound less...Rainbow Six-y. But a silencing; Keith hadn’t run one of those since--well, since before he had gotten married.

Speaking of. Keith leaned forward to look out the crack in the bathroom door. As if he needed to look; Lance was snoring away on the bed, hair disheveled, moonlight spilling across his face.

Something curled painfully in Keith’s stomach, brought back to life by that sleeping face and the thought of his wedding, which he hadn’t thought about for years. It had been such a happy day, so full of hope and promise and Lance’s kisses. There had been only a few family friends there, because both of their lines of work put a damper on making friends. You didn’t exactly meet a lot of people being a secret agent, and Lance had to travel the world as some business higher-up or other. But Shiro had been there, as had Hunk, and Pidge and most of Lance’s immediate family, and that was all they had needed. Lance had been dressed in his best tux, and when Keith had seen on him there on the altar, his face framed by white flowers, his heart skipped a beat. It was almost like he was seeing this beautiful boy for the first time all over again.

“Are you ready?” Lance had whispered to him, standing up there in front of everyone, their foreheads knocking together.

Keith grinned into Lance’s mouth. “For anything. And for always.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too. For miles and miles.”

Keith whispered back, “and with my deepest heart.”

The future had seemed so bright then. Keith had been confident that he could juggle his eccentric line of work with being married to Lance, because they were Keith and Lance and they could do anything together.

Emphasis on the “he _thought_ ” bit.

Lance choked on a particularly loud snore, and for a second Keith thought he was going to wake himself up. But after a moment the snores resumed.

Yeah. They were a long ways from that wedding day. Keith couldn’t even remember the last time they had-

“A silencing,” Keith repeated, just to shut up his own thoughts. “I assume details are incoming?”

“Encrypted, of course. We won’t be sending them until tomorrow afternoon.”

That was to break up the trail, if anyone happened to be following. Just another layer of protection for Keith and ALTEA as a whole.

The Princess crackled in his ear. “Get some sleep tonight. The good news is that the target is very close to your current location. You shouldn’t need much of a cover story.”

“Wonderful.” Keith yawned. Being thirty was beginning to feel ancient, especially at two in the morning.

He had expected that to be the extent of their conversation, but Allura was Allura, so of course she couldn’t be done quite yet. Her voice softened ever so slightly.

“How are things, Agent Red?”

“Th--they’re good, thanks.” Keith ran a hand through his hair. The toilet seat was cold against his butt, and there might have once been a time when he would have eagerly jumped in bed and curled into Lance’s side to warm up. These days, though, he just had to warm himself. “Yeah, I’m doing well.”

“Glad to hear it. I _am_ taking you out for coffee for your birthday, you know. You need to get out more. Get some vitamin D.”

If there was one thing Allura loved more than running a spy agency, it was being her agent’s’ mom. And dad, all rolled into one.

“I won’t forget, Allura. I mean Princess.”

“Honestly, Red, what is the point of codenames if-” She sighed. “Like I said, get some sleep tonight. Look for op details in the morning. Princess out.”

In his ear, the com went dead. Keith plucked it out and willed his sleepy legs back to life, headed for the bed. The sheets were cold where he had been, and feeling the heat coming off of Lance’s bare skin only made it worse.

Keith closed his eyes, willing sleep to come, trying to tell himself that he was ok.

 

**

 

By the time Lance brought himself to face the morning, Keith was already fully dressed and drinking coffee downstairs.

“Morning,” Lance said, scrubbing at his eyes. Looking at him, Keith smiled in spite of himself. Sometimes Lance still looked like he was eighteen. He was wearing planet and stars pajamas accessories with bedhead and sleepy eyes. The stubble on his chin ruined the youthful effect somewhat, but other than that, he was just...innocent. And handsome. Keith had always been so, so attracted to Lance. Where had everything gone? Why couldn’t they spontaneously make out on the kitchen counter like they used to? That curling thing inside him twisted tighter. He wanted to grab Lance and kiss him, hard. He wanted to cry into Lance’s neck and whisper secrets there and ask him what had happened to them.

But there was a space between them. An empty vacuum, and Keith didn’t know how wide it was or how deep it went. With that space, he found himself retreating like he used to. Drawing into himself like a crab. Becoming quiet, sullen, twitchy around people.

He smiled half-heartedly at Lance. “Morning. Sleep well?”

“Kinda, I guess. I think I woke up when you got up to pee? But you didn’t pee? I had a dream you were talking to the showerhead.” Lance opened the fridge, poured himself a glass of chocolate milk, and sat across the table from Keith. He clutched the mug of milk like it was his only comfort in the world. “Just having weird dreams again, I guess.”

“I guess.”

There they sat. Quiet. Unsure. About everything, about each other. Keith wanted to scream with the unfairness of it all. If he could tear and kick and beat the universe, he would have. They had been gold. They had been promise and starlight and _love_ , and now they were this.

The worst part of it? Nothing had even gone wrong. They had simply drifted apart, like their souls were anchored to different tectonic plates. As if this gulf was inevitable and going to widen forever. Keith was always busy, always away on missions, and Lance was always away for work. It was hard to love one another with the circumference of the globe between them. The fact that they were both home at once right now was a minor miracle in and of itself.

Keith was saved from the awkwardness by a buzz from his work phone.

“Gotta take this,” he told Lance, and padded away up the stairs. This would be the encrypted op details from ALTEA headquarters, complete with every life detail he would need to know about his target.

Keith kept all of his weapons in perfect order, of course, but he wondered if he himself was rusty after so long without a “silencing”. He killed people all the time on missions, sure, but there was a difference between shooting someone when blood was hot versus when you were drowning in its chill.

His phone kept buzzing. “Yeah, I know, I’m coming,” he told it irritably. He popped two pieces of toast in the oven while he flicked through the messages and waited for the file to decrypt. At the kitchen table, Lance had poured some CocoPuffs into his chocolate milk and was drinking the mixture with glee. Autumn leaves fell in a golden shower outside the patio door. Everything was quiet. Normal.

A little ding let him know the files were finished decrypting. Keith tapped the icon to open the file of whatever poor sap happened to be his target today. The encryption had arrived the previous night, well ahead of Allura’s schedule, but he paid it no mind. Allura had probably just wanted him to get a jumpstart on his op.

His toast popped up.

Without buttering it, he took a piece and bit in. Then looked at his phone. And nearly choked.

Because there on his screen, clear as day, was the photo of his target.

“Is the dishwasher empty?” Lance called from the table.

Keith didn’t answer. Instead, he stared at Lance, his husband, the person who had once been his best friend in the entire world.

He stared at the man he was going to kill today.

 

**

 

Keith sat in the bathroom, his head in his hands, rocking back and forth. This couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be real. The world was imploding, fracturing, burning to the ground.

_Stop it._ He had to think rationally. Keith mentally slapped himself.

Lance? Why would ALTEA want Lance of all people dead? The man was about as dangerous as a three-legged kitten. He still hadn’t gotten used to the lethal long limbs that puberty had given him a decade earlier, sure, but he would never intentionally hurt anyone.

Would he?

Allura was meticulous in her managing of ALTEA and its ops. There was no doubt about it that it was Lance she had targeted; it was his picture in the file she had sent. But she also didn’t know they were married, obviously; Allura made it a point to not get too involved in her agent’s personal lives. Her offer for coffee was an outlier, of course. But still. _Lance?_

If Allura and ALTEA’s board of directors had selected Lance to be killed, there was a good reason behind it, and it wasn’t a mistake. ALTEA simply did not make mistakes. Keith would have believed that gravity had been abolished easier than he would believe ALTEA had gotten their silencing target mixed up.

Something prickled at the back of his mind. He hadn’t looked at his phone since seeing Lance on that screen.

_Lance. Lance. Lance._

He had stopped rocking. That was one thing. If he thought rationally about all of this, he would get through it.

Okay. So.

ALTEA had given Keith orders, so he had to follow them. It was as simple as that. He had trained all his life to do it, so why was this any different? Because he was married to the target? It was unusual for ALTEA to give out ops to agents with personal attachments, but then again, it was possible Allura didn’t know they were married. Also it wasn’t like Keith and Lance were exactly feeding each other chocolates anymore. Keith’s dedication to ALTEA had seen to that.

A morbid thrill raced up Keith’s arm hairs. It had been ALTEA that had, in a roundabout way, killed their relationship, and now it would be ALTEA that killed Lance.

Keith groaned into his hands. It was like he was turning around and around in a prison cell and kept expecting to see something other than a wall. Everywhere his mind raced, it kept coming back to the same dead end: he was going to kill Lance today. There was no disobeying ALTEA. ALTEA stood for everything that Keith was, who he was. He had given his _life_ to the organization.

But hadn’t he promised that to Lance, too?

No. No, this was his duty. When Keith had sworn into ALTEA, he swore away everything that he was, every inch of his soul. He had promised to uphold its ideals and advance the good of the world however he could. Up until now that hadn’t butted heads with ALTEA, but Keith had made the choice of which took precedence a long time ago. If they saw fit to take Lance out, then...then it must be for the best.

There had been scenarios like this in training. Keith dimly remembered the exercises; early on in the Academy the agents in training had been paired up with a partner who they were to protect at all costs. This partner was their teammate, their only confidant in a world where you could trust nobody.

On graduation day, they had had to kill their partner.

It had been fake, of course, but the agents hadn’t known that. Keith had been running a real op, breaking into a manor party. It had all gone horribly wrong, just as ALTEA had planned, and he had come to a point where it was either kill his partner and be allowed to escape with the intel, or let them both die and fail the op.

It had been difficult, but he had pulled that trigger. Only afterword did Keith find out that it had been a simulation. All the same, it didn’t change the fact that it had felt real at the time, felt like he was ripping his heart out of chest.

That prickling insistence in the back of his head flared. There had to be more to this. Lance was a contractor, for god’s sake, not a terrorist or an assassin or a-

Keith frowned, finding the prickling too much to ignore. He didn’t want to have to face his phone again, but it was that, that or stay locked in this dead end.

There, on the screen, was that awful and undeniable picture. Lance. Keith hadn’t scrolled past it before charging upstairs. But now...now he was curious.

He thumbed down in the file.

ALTEA had gotten it wrong.

At least, that was his first thought. Of course that idea was inconceivable, so then why was all of the info listed under Lance’s picture...not Lance? Gregory Smith, his file read. Born in Brazil, 1988. Wrong, all of it was wrong. Lance was from Cuba, and he had been born in 1987, and he was decidedly not named Gregory.

Unless...

The hairs on Keith’s neck stood up. This file wasn’t wrong. Whoever had put it together had pinpointed every detail of Gregory Smith’s life with laser-like precision. Nothing in here about Gregory was fake; it was Gregory himself who didn’t exist.

A fake identity.

Keith felt the gears in his mind whir. Why would Lance need a fake identity? His eyes raced across the file as he went deeper and deeper. _Occupation. Occupation._ What did he do?

And there, near the bottom, spelled out like the final sentence of a conviction: _Field_ _Agent Level 8, V.O.L.T.R.N._

Keith sat back on the toilet seat. Suddenly he felt tired, old. The world wheeled around him, not caring about the revelations dancing before his eyes.

But that wasn’t it. Because below the occupation entry was another, this one tiny and more insidious, lurking like a predator: _Suspected Galra Operative._

“He’s an agent,” Keith whispered to himself, staring at nothing. “He’s a fucking double agent.”

  


Keith cupped his hands under the sink and let the cold water pool, then poured it over his head. He relished the delicious frost of it. The distraction of the chill.

As the water dripped over his face, the wheels in his head began to turn.

ALTEA, Keith had been taught, was founded by Allura’s grandfather during World War II for the sole purpose of combatting the Axis offshoot known as the Galra Empire. Though the Nazis had of course been defeated, the Galra had somehow managed to live on, feeding on the weak, burrowing deep into small and remote countries like a parasite. For years the larger world had believed that the Galra were extinct. That was all thanks to ALTEA, of course.

But then, when Allura had been a child, the Galra Empire had reared its ugly neck. They orchestrated a massive terrorist attack, the likes of which had never been seen before. Fifteen hundred people had died that day; it was only the actions of ALTEA agents that prevented the death toll from reaching into the millions.

ALTEA wasn’t alone in their fight. Other organizations had come and gone, some of them government-sanctioned, some of them not, but all of them withered away after a while; the Galra were too strong to fight with green agents, fresh from new academies; only experience could fight Zarkon and his minions. V.O.L.T.R.N. was just the latest in a long line of these government agencies. Though it seemed slightly more competent than the average bureaucracy, Keith still highly doubted V.O.L.T.R.N. would see the end of the decade. They couldn’t even string together a coherent acronym for a name.

Keith skipped cupping his hands and put his whole head under the faucet. Then he shook, spraying water droplets everywhere. When he looked at himself in the mirror, his eyes were red-rimmed, his bangs hanging in black spikes over his face.

It was one thing that Lance had lied about being an agent. Keith maybe understand where that had come from. But to be a Gara mole? That wasn’t just lying about his job; that was lying about everything. Because Galra operatives didn’t care about things like morals or decency or love. If Lance was a Galra, then he had never loved Keith at all. He was a stone cold killer, and that would be all there was to it.

For a moment, Keith felt a riptide of anger coursing through his body, anger at Lance for not telling him something like this. They had promised to share their lives, share _everything_ with each other.

But then a little voice said, _did you?_

No, of course not. Of course he hadn’t. So how could Keith be mad at Lance for doing the same?

He was an agent. His husband, the man he had trusted everything to, was a secret agent. But not only that, he probably worked for the government that was responsible for genocides of entire populations, for more terror and darkness and heartache than the world had ever seen.

Keith didn’t know if his brain could reverse everything he had ever felt for Lance in a few moments based off a revelation that may or may not be true. He wanted to believe that Lance was only V.O.L.T.R.N., because that, at least, he could understand.

Another part of Keith still hounded for blood. Metaphorical blood, that was. Not that it mattered, because the blood spilled today was going to be anything but a metaphor.

An ugly thought occurred to Keith: this might not be as easy as he was told. Not just for obvious personal reasons, but because V.O.L.T.R.N. was an organization nearly equal with ALTEA (emphasis on the nearly), and Lance was evidently a high level agent. He wouldn’t be some exec sipping wine on a yacht and groping girls, blissfully unaware that his heart was in Keith’s crosshairs. No, Lance would know how to defend himself.

Keith laughed joylessly. How could it slip past Allura that “Gregory” and Keith were married? Lance’s skill at cover was good, Keith would give him that. It had to be to get through Allura’s wide nets.

Not to mention that Keith had lived with the man for the past six years. _Fuck!_  There was a treasure trove of ALTEA gear stashed in the house. Lance was sure to have some too, and Keith had never found so much as lockpicking hairpin to make him suspect. He really must be getting slow.

That nagging thought came back to him: Lance knew how to defend himself. So the next question was, did he know Keith was coming?

Did this mean he was going to do it, then? Had he accepted that he was about to kill his husband?

Keith blinked at the bathroom tile. There was no choice. There just wasn’t. Either he did this, or he walked away from ALTEA forever, probably followed out the door by an agent about to put a bullet in the back of his head as a parting gift. The Princess wasn’t fond of loose ends.

“Shit,” he said to himself. That was it, then. He had to do it. Did it make him a horrible person if he felt less bad about killing Lance knowing that he was a Galra? If Lance walked right up to him right now and said, to his face, that he worked for Zarkon, would Keith still feel anything for the man?

Had he felt anything for him this morning?

Yes. No. No no no and yes, of course, absolutely. They were married, for fuck’s sake. They were having a hard time right now but they were married. Some small part of Keith would always love Lance, all the way to the ends of the earth.

But what if Lance had never existed? If he was Galra, there was no Lance. There was no sweet and funny and annoying and cute guy whom Keith loved and who loved Keith back. Lance was a fiction. Possibly. Everything was confused, everything was _maybe_ and _what if_ and shadows and rumors, and Keith didn’t know what to think.

Part of Keith wanted a fight. Killing was easier when it was kill or die. Maybe he wouldn’t realize what he had done until after Lance was a corpse.

_Stop it. Just do it._

He swore again, low, soft, and then stood. Keith’s main weapons cache was a secret room in the basement, but there was, in fact, a small handgun stored in a false drawer in the bathroom cabinet, not three feet away.

Keith opened the cabinet and began keying in his code, slipping into the velvet movement that field work required almost without thinking. He could feel his mind slowing down and speeding up at the same time, as if it were moving through clear, liquid amber. Everything was falling away, giving way to skill and training. This was an action he had performed a thousand times. No thinking was required. Normally Keith relished this state, this well-oiled machinery mind of his that could get the job done and feel nothing. Right then, though, that machine repulsed him.

_Just do it._

A panel behind the ibuprofen and cotton balls slid back, and there was the gun. It was a small, black, ugly thing, programmed only to fire if Keith’s hand was holding it. He took it. The gun felt heavy his hands. The muzzle was a savage dog, ripping at the leash, begging to be let go so it could destroy.

This was the weapon that would kill his husband. That would kill Lance.

Keith took out his phone, took another look at Lance’s photo in the file. Then he flushed the empty toilet, ran the sink for a moment, and slipped out the bathroom door.

 

**

 

Keith stepped out the bathroom a different person. He was, as he padded down the hall, no longer Lance’s husband. No. That person had been left behind, shed like a snake skin. Now he was just Keith, Agent Red, a man holding a gun as he moved noiselessly down the hall.

Still, though, a small part of his mind rebelled. This house had always been too big for the two of them. A large, three bathroom Colonial Revival situated in the outskirts of a suburb of the city, it surrounded on all sides by green lawns and sidewalks and lonely oak trees overshadowing the roads. They had had a vague notion of filling up all the rooms with adopted kids when they had bought it, but really they hadn’t put much thought into it. Both of them made a shit ton of money, so why not buy the biggest house they could find? It had sounded like a good idea at the time. Plenty of places for Keith to hide weapons.

He began down the flight of stairs, and three steps down, made his first mistake.

Keith wasn’t thinking, and that was what got him. As he descended, he slid the clip out of the handgun, just to be sure, since he hadn’t checked on the gun in a while. When he put the clip back in place, it made the tiniest of clicks.

To a normal person, that _click_ would have been imperceptible. But to an agent, to Keith, to Lance, it would be as loud as any shot fired.

Keith froze on the stairs. Listened. He couldn’t hear any noise coming from the kitchen except for the radio. Maybe he was just being paranoid, but Lance wasn’t a quiet person. Not in the slightest. And besides, paranoia was what had kept him alive all this time, hadn’t it?

The stairs were far too open a position to stay in, so Keith made his way down quickly, noiselessly. The first floor was a simple rectangle: the front door on the south wall opened into a foyer directly facing the staircase, or north. On either side of the foyer (east and west) was a doorless entrance into the living room and dining room, respectively. If one entered the dining room and headed north, they were then in the kitchen. Turning east would take them to the garage. West would bring them into the back laundry room, which led south into a bathroom, north into the back yard, and west into the living room.

That meant that from the bottom of the stairs, Keith was really, really exposed.

“Lance, babe,” Keith called. His voice rang loud. It was like when you got up in the middle of the night when everyone was sleeping and talked at normal volume: every sound seemed amplified.

He slipped his gun into his waistband. “Did you get the mail this morning?”

Nothing. Suddenly, ridiculously, Keith felt like he was a little kid again, playing hide-and-go-seek, only this time with...bullets. Sure.

But there was definitely that feeling in the air: that guitar-string-tight, taut, tension-filled feeling of an empty place that wasn’t empty. Of someone trying to make themselves unseen.

And then, appearing from the dining room, was Lance. He was leaning on the wall, one arm held behind his back.

And that was when Keith knew. Before that moment, he could have pretended that Allura had somehow gotten it wrong, that it was wrong, everything was wrong about Lance. But there was a look on Lance’s face. It was that one simple statement, filled with fake and taunting, that confirmed everything.

Something in Keith sank. Broke. He had wanted desperately to believe anything but this, but he just couldn’t. He had fought other agents before. He knew what this spectral tension between them was, that both of them knew and were playing a _game_. More than anything he hated it.

“Sorry babe. I thought I just heard something and was coming to check on you and make sure you didn’t hurt yourself or something.” Lance’s smile couldn’t quite reach his eyes. “I wanted to hurry because you know, even if you did hurt yourself? I don’t think you would tell me. It seems like you would keep that hidden for a really long time.”

Keith sighed. Every muscle in his body was ready. Alive, electric, baying for blood. This was the one singular moment before the bomb went off, before a car smashed into your ribs, before a hurricane disintegrated a house. When your mind drew a breath and went _oh, fuck._

“I could say the same about you.”

“I checked my work email. Got a new assignment.”

“Me too.”

“I’m supposed to start today.” Lance’s grin flickered. “Told ‘em I’d work from home.”

The moment after that, two things happened:

The first was that Keith reached for his gun, tucked in his waistband. He had drawn it halfway to shooting position before the second event forced him to change tactics.

The second event was this: Lance’s hidden hand emerged, and it was holding a kitchen knife. With deadly speed he then threw that knife with practiced ease at Keith.

Keith threw himself to one side, down that final stair, and as he was falling he thought: _finally._ Finally it had come to this. That awful tension had exploded.

But more than that? This felt like the first rain after a very, very long drought. He and Lance had been caught, caught in these awful doldrums for years. And even if they were trying to kill each other, some twisted part of Keith still wondered if something, anything at all, was better than nothing.

The knife bit into the bannister an inch from Keith’s face, quivering. Without stopping to think, Keith drew his gun, aimed, fired from the ground.

One,

two,

three bullets shattered drywall and wood siding, but Lance had already disappeared into the dining room.

Keith wiped a smear of blood from his temple, pulled himself to his feet, and cricked his neck.

“Did I get you, babe?” Calmly but with a thudding heart, he turned to the wall on the side of the stairs and slid back the panel, revealing a safe with a handprint security identifier. Inside was another stash. Keith selected a semi-automatic burst rifle with a few extra magazines, a handful of flash grenades and a long serrated knife.

Lance’s voice floated from the kitchen: “Nah, I think I’m good. Hope your aim is better than your cooking.”

They were really doing this. Keith had to just...stop for a moment and digest it. They were really going to try and kill each other.

_Alrighty then._ He was surprised to hear that voice speak up. It sounded familiar. It sounded like the one that used to get his blood pumping, his face heated, his mind racing about Lance. There was no way he was going to let Lance kill him first. Fuck that.

_Alrighty then,_ that voice said again, and this time Keith recognized it. It was what always drove him into competition with Lance. Or at least it had, years ago. _Are you really gonna let that asshole kill you? No? Then stop dicking around put a skylight in his head before he puts one in yours._

“Fine,” Keith said, slinging the rifle and its strap around on his shoulders. “Game on.”

He dove for the wall and pressed his back to it, while at the same time pulling the pin on the flash grenade. Keith tossed it in the dining room, squeezed his eyes shut.

_BANG._

He didn’t waste a second. Swinging around the wall, Keith raised his rifle and fired burst after burst into the room. Bullets tore into the table, the wall, the cabinets, sending splinters and smoke and dust flying everywhere.

A shotgun blast flew past his head, nearly taking it off. The shell slammed into the china cabinet instead with an explosion of shattering glass.

“Shiro gave me those plates for our wedding!” Keith yelled, grabbing a new magazine and slipping it into his rifle. Lance’s voice still sounded like it was in the kitchen. How was he not dead?

“Always hated those things! Never told you till just now.”

Keith roared and dove into the dining room proper. As he had expected, Lance took another potshot, but the shells went wide. From the cover of the dining table Keith squeezed off another round. That damn counter sure was durable, he would give it that. He needed to get past it; that was Lance’s refuge for now.

Keith tossed another flash over the counter, waited for the bang, then threw himself over the surface and there was Lance, scrambling to his feet. In the moment it took Keith to gain his senses, raise his rifle and fire, Lance had tore open the door of the stainless steel refrigerator. Bullets bit harmlessly into the metal.

Keith moved closer without thinking, and the door suddenly slammed into his face, sending him flying backward. His head connected with tile. White. Noise. Pain.

A barrel was in his sights. _Roll!_ Shotgun shell exploded the ceramic tile where a second before his head had been. Keith kicked out wildly, connected with something solid, and then Lance dropped to the ground like a sack of rocks. Rifle too bulky to aim. Slam the barrel into Lance’s forehead.

Keith took the opening and lunged forward with his knife. Something hot and salty was flooding his mouth, but he didn’t care. His knife met air: Lance had rolled. On his feet.

_Get up!_

No sooner had he risen than his ears picked up a faint whistling, and it was instinct that saved him.

Keith whirled around and caught the edge of Lance’s knife on his own. For a moment they were still. Like sparring partners, staring over the metallic sheen of their blades.

“How’re you holding up, darling?” Lance blinked blood out of his eyes. It was dribbling down from somewhere above his hairline, leaving a trail of crimson in its wake, leaving something of itself behind wherever it went. A large gash traveled from his forehead down to cheekbone.

Their knives were trembling with force. Keith blew a strand of sweaty hair away.

“I can go all morning.”

Lance smirked. “Nah babe, you never could do that.”

Then Lance’s fist struck like a snake. Pain flared in Keith’s kidney. He crumpled for a fraction of a second, Lance’s knife flashed, Keith caught it with his own, then they were fencing with their blades, moving back and forth as quick as silver.

It was a dance, in some strange and beautiful way. They moved in a circle around the large kitchen they had always wanted, Keith holding himself tight, Lance lashing out to test his defenses. Lance moved quickly, bouncing on the balls of his feet, never holding still, but that was fine with Keith. Let Lance tire himself out.

Violence broke out like a tropical rainstorm: heavy, intense, out of nowhere. Knives rang like disjointed bells, their grunts and groans of pain like gross staccatos in the music. The radio was playing a jazz song, trumpet solo. Some insane part of Keith’s brain thought, _Freddie Hubbard,_ First Light.

And through it all, that inane sense of competition. Like the stupid little ways they used to compete before they were dating; _who’s the best at...at can do this the fastest..._ no fucking way Keith was going to lose this one. Not to Lance. He would rather die.

Yet, some other part of him also was-

No. How could he think about that right now?

Still though, the way Lance’s sweaty hair clung to his face, his chest heaving, face alive with emotion...he looked _hot._

Keith lashed out with his foot, got Lance right in the stomach. His husband flew back into the cabinets with resounding crash, and Keith used the time to run and pick up his rifle where it lay discarded by the dining table. It was a first rule of combat to never leave your opponent to their devices, but if he wanted that rifle, he had no choice.

Fluid as water, Keith swept up the rifle and ducked behind the entrance to the dining room, where he had been a minute earlier. A spare magazine was tucked behind the picture frame, so he got to work reloading.

It only took about ten seconds, but still, the house had again fallen eerily quiet.

“You dead yet, honey?” He called, if only to get a sense of what Lance was up to in there.

He sounded calm but muffled. Like one would be if they were crouching behind the counter. “That’s cute. You keep wishing and maybe it’ll come true..”

Gotcha. Without wasting another second, Keith swung around sprayed the kitchen with bullets again, thinking that Lance’s head would be caught right in the crossfire…

Instead, he saw the trap that his husband had lain, and knew what was going to happen a split second before it did. Lance had ripped out the gas line to the stove and let it run on top of the counter. As in the same counter where Keith’s bullets were currently throwing up sparks. Lance was probably holed up, safe in the bathroom, laughing his ass off.

The gas line exploded, and Keith watched in horror for a fraction of a heartbeat as a wall of flames swept down upon him. He had just enough time to turn and shield his face before the shockwave caught up and lifted him off his feet.

It felt like Lance had taken a sledgehammer to his ribs. Keith flew straight across the foyer and crashed into the back of the living room couch, losing his breath for a second time in that handful of seconds. _Fuck._ A nimbus of pain bloomed in his chest and radiated outwards, screeching in agony.

_Getupgetupgetupgetup-_

Keith had no sooner forced his eyes open and his wobbly legs to stand than out of the smoke and fire flew Lance. Hands raised in a fighting stance, Lance sprinted towards Keith and returned the stomach kick favor, once again sending Keith toppling over the couch.

“C’mon honey,” Lance said, vaulting over the cushions. He crooked his fingers like some lame movie character and let his best shit-eating grin spread across his face. “Come to daddy.”

_Oh, screw you._ Keith pretended to drag himself up by the window curtains so that he could tear them down. Then he turned, fast as fire, and slung the curtain around Lance’s neck. Keith yanked. Kneed Lance’s forehead, then pushed him through the 70-inch plasma screen TV they had agonized over in Best Buy four years ago.

Keith spit a glob of blood onto the shiny wood floor. Smiled grimly. “Who’s your daddy now?”

From there, it was a hand-to-hand brawl. They traded blows, their bodies moving in a synchronized routine, and they were close, so close.

Keith was suddenly reminded of their wedding night, Of their discussion about hearts that had started the day they met and continued forever from there. Lance had always believed that people had different hearts they showed in different situations. This heart was for your mom, this heart for your friend.

Keith knew there was just one heart, and it was the twisting organ inside his ribs. But Lance had convinced him, slowly. That there were many hearts in a human being, and the deepest one of all was for that person. The one.

“I love you,” Lance would said, breath warm, fingers fluttering over Keith’s skin. “With my deepest heart.”

There had also been a dance at their reception, a giant party of bodies moving against one another. It was this way now, Keith ducking under Lance’s blows and giving his own, colliding with their chests pressed together, landing on the floor with mouths centimeters apart, panting hot air and legs tangled and-

A fist struck his cheek and Keith went reeling.

“Think you can take some more of me?” Lance practically growled it. They were almost beyond words now, just fighting animals.

Keith sucked in air, saw the sweat glistening on Lance’s jawline. “You're the one who needs to work on taking more of me.”

"Making a joke to act like your junk's big, that's mature."

"You _love penis jokes!_ "

They flew back together. Like it was a competition to see how much of the space between them they could obliterate. That something in Keith’s stomach stirred, that anger, that attract-

“Tell me something before I kill you,” Keith said, catching Lance’s mouth in an elbow hook. Lance stumbled and Keith swung again, but the stumble was just a bluff. Lance caught Keith’s elbow. Twisted.

Lance smirked. “As if you could.”

Then the floor rushed up to meet Keith’s face. Lance drew back to kick him, but Keith lashed out blindly with his foot and struck home on Lance’s shin. He toppled with a heavy _oomph._

“I can understand the V.O.L.T.R.N. secret, why you lied,” Keith said, struggling for air. They were wrestling now, Lance’s leg wrapped around Keith’s back, Keith’s hands scrabbling for purchase on Lance’s neck. Their breath was hot and Keith was furious, a forest fire was an inferno was a razing town in his gut, and he wanted more, he wanted-

A foot in his stomach. Keith hit the coffee table. Rolled, slammed Lance’s back through the glass surface.

“But tell me. You have to tell me: are you Galra?”

“What?”

“I said,” Keith growled, insistent, furious. He had to know. He had to know if all of their love was a lie, or just some of it. He had to know he had to know he had to- “ _Are. You. Galra?_ ”

Lance looked up at him from the shattered depths of their coffee table. His bloodied eyebrows knit together in what looked like honest confusion, then lowered in anger.

Of course, he if was Galra, he could pull a lie over Keith about a lot more than that.

“No! Fuck them! I was gonna ask you the same thing, man!”

“Bullshi-” But Keith couldn’t finish, because a butterfly knife had appeared in Lance’s hand (probably stashed in the table), and Keith had to scramble away to avoid getting a second mouth cut in his face.

Lance stood, chest heaving, blood dripping down his face. He wiped a hand across his cheek and left a smear of crimson on his face. “I’m not a Galra agent, if that’s what you’re thinking.” His hand blurred. Keith ducked. The butterfly knife buried itself in the wall a millimeter from Keith’s ear. “I’ve spent my life trying to stop them.”

“You think I haven’t?” Keith yanked a knife strapped to his leg. Returned the favor. This time it shattered a framed photo of him and Lance, smiling on the beach.

“You have to be helping them somehow! It said “Suspected Galra Operative” right on your fucking file! That’s why I’m trying the fuck to kill you!” Then his eyes widened. He faltered. “Wait. Keith, I-”

“No! Don’t even start.”

Keith flew towards Lance and they fell again into in a furious grappling of limbs. Right there, right then, that was when he felt his heart truly breaking. Not before when he had been aiming a gun at Lance’s head, not when it had been cold and impersonal. But right here with his hands at Lance’s throat, he began to cry.

“Keith, think about this for a second!”

“No!” He wanted it over. He wanted it over and Lance dead so it could just be done with already. Keith had been wrong. He had thought that he could just become Agent Red and not feel pain while he ripped out his own heart, but you didn’t get to do that. For every reaction, there was a reaction. Equal and opposite. Lance didn’t get to die without Keith feeling that death too.

Lance turned and smashed Keith against the wall. With wild hands, Keith grabbed for something, anything, and his hands found the butterfly knife lodged in the wall. “Think about this! We both get assignments to kill each other? On the _same day?_ ”

“Shut up!”

Keith threw his weight and managed to turn Lance around, pushing him up against a closet door. He held a knife to his throat.

And here it was. The end. Where Keith had to examine all the relics of his love with Lance, each of them a little snow globe of memory, and shatter each of them in turn. He--

Lance clawed at Keith’s waist and threw them both to the floor.

“You lied about everything.” They turned over and over as if caught in a riptide, their faces so close, so close. “You lied about _everything_. So I deserve the truth right now. Please.” Keith wanted to hear it. He couldn’t stand the not knowing anymore, the endless wondering of what his husband was.

Keith fought to get on top again, then pinned down Lance’s elbows with his knees, pointed the knife at his throat.

“Please. Just...just tell me.”

They stopped. Keith held his knife, but his eyes slid down to see another knife in Lance’s hand, pressing against Keith’s side.

Checkmate.

A tear slid down Keith’s cheek, mixing with blood, and dropped onto Lance’s forehead. It bloomed and spread there like a flower. Lance’s eyes were huge, searching Keith’s face for something Keith himself couldn’t find.

“I’m not a Galra.” Everything was still. They could both kill each other in a heartbeat. Smoke drifted across the floor from the kitchen, dust fell from the bullet holes in the walls, but they were still.

“Keith, I-”

“How do I know? How do I know you’re not lying?”

Keith’s voice was shaking, trembling with rage and desperation.

“I’m not a Galra.” With a bloody hand, Lance reached up and cupped Keith’s face. “I promise you from my deepest heart, I am not a Galra.”

It was like a bullet tearing into his chest, eviscerating his heartstrings A riptide dragging him under and he couldn’t breathe.  
A lump in his throat took hold. Everything in Keith’s head was mixed up, so only now was he processing what Lance had said. Was it strange that they had gotten their assignments on the same day? Maybe, but not inconceivable.

But was it more of a coincidence that Allura hadn’t known they were married? Allura, who had dedicated her life to knowing everything in the name of protecting her agents? If Keith had to guess, he would say that Allura had everything on Lance plus his immediate family on record, up to and including his employment at V.O.L.T.R.N.; government agencies were hardly beyond her ability to infiltrate.

Could Keith really believe, then, that Allura didn’t know she was sending him off to kill his husband? If Allura knew they were married, she would never give this op to Keith. He was too personally attached to the mission.

What was the alternative though? ALTEA didn’t make mistakes.

“If you’re not a Galra, then why does your file say so?”

Lance whispered, “I don’t know. Why does yours? I don’t _know,_ Keith.”

Lance’s eyes were roaming across Keith’s face, because he was still frozen. Staring at Lance.

He made a decision. _With my deepest heart._ The knife dropped out of Keith’s hands.

And then he knew.

“Our mission briefings.” Keith said, his voice hoarse.

“What about them?”

“They weren’t from our agencies.” As he spoke, Keith felt like he was unearthing something, like he was a caver exploring new synapses in his brain that hadn’t previously been accessible. And with each word that spilled out of his mouth, he understood the truth. It had been there. Always. “Our real ops were intercepted.”

Lance stared, and Keith watched it clicked in his head. He nodded. He understood. “The Galra. They’re-”

“-using us against each other. To take each other out. These weren’t our real ops.”

It was so simple. So deliciously simple that Keith almost wanted to laugh even though he was crying. Killing Lance had to be a mistake, but ALTEA didn’t make mistakes, so this op to kill Lance wasn’t from ALTEA at all. It was from the Galra, who had managed to access both his and Lance’s lines.

Allura had told him that his op wasn’t coming until the afternoon, yet he hadn’t even thought about--

From his pocket, Keith’s phone buzzed.

His first instinct was to reach for it, but he stopped. It was possible, all of it was possible, that Lance was bluffing, and the moment Keith let his attention slip there would be a bullet in his throat.

But Lance was still looking at him. His body was tense, but calm. And Keith was tired of all this bullshit.

He reached for the phone.

On it was an encrypted file. With trembling fingers, he gave his code for download. And there. Right fucking there. Was his op: a silencing. Of one of Zarkon’s top men, General Sendak.

Keith read, and read, and read. Three weeks from now, Sendak would be vulnerable during a fundraiser gala in the city. Keith was to gather information and formulate an assassination plan. There was nothing about a Gregory, or Lance, or V.O.L.T.R.N. The entire op had been a fictional bucket of shit.

The phone dropped onto the floor with noise that sounded like the screen cracking, but Keith didn’t care. He was still straddling Lance, and now his whole body was trembling.

“I almost killed you,” Keith choked out. His hair was falling in sweaty curtains, framing both their faces in a private world.

Lance managed a shaky smirk. “You never got that close, babe.”

A sob escaped Keith’s throat. “Oh my God Lance, I almost _killed you._ _I almost killed you._ ”

And it was true. Keith sat back on Lance’s legs, gulping in big breaths of smoky, sooty air. He had been so ready to shoot his husband. He had come so _close._ And the worst part of it was how ready he had been to believe that Lance was a Galra. Oh, he hadn’t wanted to, but half an hour after getting his op he had been shooting a semi-automatic machine gun at the man, hadn’t he?

Keith wanted to believe that he was a better person than to let his sorry marraige be a big factor in that decision, but he couldn’t. Had he really been ready to accept Lance was a Galra just because he was pissed with him?  
“Hey. Hey.” Lance sat up, propping himself on his elbows. “Stop crying, dude, you’re making me look bad. It’s okay.”

Keith shook his head. How could he make Lance understand? “No, it’s not! Lance, I was going to shoot you! I thoug-I thought you were a Galra. I was so ready to believe it. I was looking for any way to demonize you and I _did-”_  
“Hey.” Lance cupped Keith’s jaw. “I used a shotgun on you. And a knife. Two of them, actually. I’m not innocent here either.”

Keith laughed, the sound ringing hollow. Still, though. It felt good. He looked around at the house, which was in ruins. Glass and bullet casings were scattered across the floor, which was burned from Lance’s little gas line stunt.

“Look at us. Look at the house.”

Lance was nodding. “Yeah, I know...are we gonna do this every time we fight? Because, like, I don’t make enough money for that. Also does this mean we’re in an abusive relationship?”

“Don’t joke about that.”

“I’m just saying-” Lance giggled.

“Doesn’t count. We were agents when we were trying to kill each other.”

“Then what are we now?”

Keith turned back to his husband, this beautiful boy sitting beneath him. And he felt that stirring thing uncurling, those bubbling thoughts brewing beneath the surface of their fight finally coming to the surface to the surface.

With a grunt, Keith grabbed Lance’s hands and rocked back onto his feet, then stood. Before Lance could open his big mouth, Keith pushed him back against the wall like they were going to fight again. Only this time? He crashed forward like a wave and kissed Lance.

“What are you doing?” Lance broke away, his eyes hopeful and wild. Though Keith couldn’t explain it, he felt angry again, burning like he had in their fight to the death. He was angry at the universe, and at the Galra and at himself, and it was burning him up inside.

Keith grabbed fistfulls of Lance’s tattered and slightly smoking shirt.

“I’m going to kiss my goddamn husband. If that’s okay.”

“Yeah,” Lance said weakly.   

And so Keith did.

 

The kindling embers in Keith were only given oxygen by the taste of Lance, and when their mouths touched he felt that inferno crawling up, that sun bursting its nuclear flames across dead space.

It was like they were trying to make up for lost time. If their fight had been a storm, than this was a hurricane. Keith turned Lance around and pushed him back onto the couch, their mouths dueling, hands everywhere as if their skin would disappear without touch. This time, when they fell to the floor, they turned over and over in a different riptide. And all Keith could think was, _I love you I love you I love you._ He thought it for every bullet hole and knife cut and explosion their house had taken that day. He thought it as their shirts came off not fast enough, as Lance ran his hands though Keith’s hair, as Keith kissed that brown expanse of freckled skin, as they kissed and kissed and kissed.

 

The couch was too full of bullets to support their weight without collapsing, so Keith and Lance found a slightly singed blanket and lay together on the floor, arms around each other. Lance was tracing a finger around the contours of Keith’s face. Keith was drinking in everything about Lance and his eyes, the point on his nose, the broadness of his shoulders and chest, the starry freckles. He felt like it was their wedding night, or before that, their first night.

Lance turned his head to look at Keith. Stray strands of hair drifted across his face, and the afternoon sun shining through the window was hitting his eyes just right, lighting them up in a dozen dazzling shades of brown flecked with gold.

“I’m sorry,” Lance said. Bruises bloomed across his face like wildflowers. They were all over the rest of his body too, and the two of them had had to be careful as they moved against each other to avoid the worst of the pain. For every bruise Keith felt a stab of guilt. A hundred knives buried in his back.

Keith frowned. “For what?”

“Oh, you know. Chipping the paint. Ruining the bar counter.”

“S’okay. I hated that granite anyway.”

A chuckle rumbled from Lance’s throat, and Keith couldn’t help but kiss him again.

“Really though,” Lance whispered. “I’m sorry. Not just for today but, like, the last couple of years, man. I’ve been...not great.”

“You’re not the only one.”

“Dude, you work for ALTEA. I’m lucky you come home at all. V.O.L.T.R.N.’s pretty much a glorified DMV. I could’ve made more time for...everything.”

Keith frowned, wrapped a hand around the back of Lance’s head and tugged him closer. “Don’t say that. Don’t act like what you do isn’t important. It is.”

“I lied to you. For a really long time.”

He sighed, and rolled over on his back so he was facing the ceiling. If Keith squinted hard enough, he could almost pretend the bullet holes were black stars, forming a constellation in the stucco.

“I think we both have some work to do on our honesty.”

Keith thought about how long and short the last few hours had been. How he had woken up this morning not knowing, no, worse that that; knowing and not _caring_ what a heartbreakingly beautiful person he had.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “For everything. For being able to believe you would ever work with the Galra...that wasn’t fair to-I’m just...I’m sorry.”

Lance crawled in closer, drawing one long arm across Keith’s chest, planting kisses down his neck and into his shoulder. “Same here.”

“I love you.”

“I know.”

Keith snorted and flicked Lance’s ear with the arm that traveled under his husband’s neck. “Are you trying to seduce me with _Star Wars_ quotes? Like we’re eighteen?”

“Worked then, didn’t it?” Lance mumbled, still kissing Keith’s skin, every kiss a sunburst.

And it was, it was like more than a decade ago, when they would go on dates to get ice cream and see a movie and drive for no reason and make out wherever they parked. It was like when Keith realized their burning rivalry was fueled by something very opposite than spite, like when Lance would crack jokes and Keith knew as he groaned outwardly that he found Lance funny and attractive, attractive like he had his own gravity and was pulling Keith in…

He angled his face to catch Lance’s kisses as one would turn a sail to catch the wind. He felt all the love of their lives rushing back in at once to fill that empty space that maybe hadn’t been empty, just neglected. A little forgotten, maybe, but never gone. This morning had been a summary of their lives together: first indifference, then flaming competition followed by love.

That’s when he felt it. Far down in his chest, the almost painful throbbing of his very deepest heart. Keith knew it no longer belonged to just him. As long as he had known this boy he was holding, that heart had never belonged to just Keith.

A long, long time later, Lance said, “Uh, so, I hate to break this to you, but...I think the Galra are going to notice when we both walk out of the house not-dead.”

_Oh, yeah._

“They might, yes.”

Lance’s hand caressed the back of Keith’s head, decidedly unworried. “Knowing the Galra, they’re probably watching us right now, not trying very hard to kill each other.”

“Hm.” Though he wanted to, Keith couldn’t bring himself to care. He nestled closer to Lance. Savored his furnace skin, the smell of it, the sound of his heart beating against his ear.

“They might even come kill us themselves to cover this up. Now, I’m not trying to be _that guy_ here, but you think we should maybe get ready?”

Keith moaned sleepily. “There’s an M16 and three grenades inside the couch.” He reached over, tapped a hidden button on the mug holder which brought up a keypad, and typed in his code. “There. All ready.”

Lance’s chest bounced his face with laughter. “You even rigged the couch?”

“That’s the least of it, trust me.”

Keith knew he should be worried about the Galra. He should be filing a report to ALTEA. He should probably be doing a lot of things other than cuddle with his husband on the couch in their destroyed house, but he just couldn’t bring himself to care. There was a shining bubble of happiness expanding in his chest which he had no intention of popping. He hadn’t been this close this long with Lance in a long time. All he wanted was to be here, in this moment, forever.

With a sigh, Lance relaxed and kissed the top of Keith’s head. “Probably about fifteen Galra bozos coming to kill us.”

“Yep.”

“Gonna have a lot of weapons, all of ours files and, like, know everything about what we suck at.”

“Probably.”

“So...I think I’ll take a nap with you. Sound good?”

“Mm-hm,” Keith was already half asleep. He felt himself floating away in that bubble, drifting with Lance, up and higher and into the clouds. How had he ever forgotten this? This incredible feeling and this incredible person? How had he nearly let all of this slip through his fingers?

Keith looked up, suddenly wanting to commit every part of Lance’s face to memory. “Lance?”

“Yeah?” The way his nose curved into a point. The scatter of freckles across its bridge, his slim eyebrows, the jawline that puberty had sharpened and then forgotten to dull. The stubble on his chin, his wide ears, those brownish-pink lips, the bruises and scrapes and cuts, everything.

“I just…” Keith struggled with the words, just like he had his whole life. He settled for, “I love you. A lot. I always have. Always.”

“Me too. Forever.”

“For miles and miles.”

“For miles and miles,” Lance agreed. “And with my deepest heart.”

The exchange was well-worn like two dirt ruts in a field. Simple yet familiar. Keith closed his eyes, just for a second. That second stretched into two, then more, and that moment with Lance became a forever.

 


End file.
